Altidore has extensive international experience with the US team. In 2007, he came in third overall for most goals — four total — at the FIFA U-20 World Cup. He participated in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup where the US defeated Spain in the semifinals. Altidore scored a goal.

He made the USMNT squad for the 2010 World Cup, but didn’t see much action in South Africa. A hamstring injury limited him at the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup. A scoring drought which lasted two years followed.

Altidore got things going again in 2013, setting an American record by scoring in five consecutive international games. In the last game of the streak against Bosnia and Herzegovina, he turned in a hat trick.

Altidore is one of the team’s few real scoring threats and is sure to be given plenty of chances to make good in this World Cup.

Jozy Altidore started his professional career at the age of 16 with the New York MetroStars (now the Red Bulls) in 2006. Still in high school, he spent much of his time in Florida earning his diploma.

A strong showing in New York attracted the Spanish club team Villarreal, which offered up a transfer fee of $10 million in 2008 for Altidore, the most ever paid for an American player. Villarreal loaned Altidore to Xerez, a second-division team in Spain, to give him more playing time. But he suffered an injury a month before the season ended.

In August of 2009, Altidore was loaned to Hull City of the English Premier League, where he played for almost two years.

More recently Altidore has played for Bursaspor from Turkey and AZ from the Dutch league. He helped AZ win the KNVB Cup final, its first in 31 years. Last summer Altidore returned to the English Premier League, this time with Sunderland.

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USMNT head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, has stated that the team doesn’t have much chance of winning the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Altidore agrees. He told the press that the US is going to play to win the Cup but will take one game at a time. The US has never won a World Cup, as he pointed out, so it’s best not to act like we can.

Starting against Ghana, in the US team’s first game of the tournament, Altidore pulled up lame with a hamstring injury. His status for the second game against Portugal is still in question.

J.L. Herrera is a huge fan of football and has been following the Raiders since the 1980s during the LA era. J.L. is also a freelance writer and copywriter on the web. He taught English for a little more than a decade in Los Angeles at the secondary level. While writing for web-based news outlets, J.L. enjoys reading, creative writing, and watching sports. His work can be found on Examiner.com.